


Humans are Weird

by Dewsparkle



Series: Little Stories of the Avenging Kind [10]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Culture Differences, Curiosity, Fluff, Human Tony Stark, Loki kinda stalks Tony, Loneliness, M/M, Merman Loki, Slow Build, Tony doesn't seem to mind, but that's okay, mer!loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:11:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dewsparkle/pseuds/Dewsparkle
Summary: Loki has lived alone in his claimed waters for many years, though he is not sure how many. It is only chance that a human decides to search for an old shipwreck near his dwelling, and Loki's curiosity is peaked. Or how the merman met the human face to face.





	Humans are Weird

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not All Treasure Is Silver and Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974674) by [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/pseuds/STARSdidathing). 
  * Inspired by [Meet me where the sky touches the sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10627095) by [fyrefly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyrefly/pseuds/fyrefly). 



> This is just something random I was inspired to write after reading two amazing mer!Loki fics. I hope it's alright, I'm not too happy with the ending but I couldn't think of anything else to add or change. Also I couldn't think of a title so here we are. 
> 
> Enjoy? :)

Loki had lived in these waters for many years since he left his tribe, and never had he seen a human until now. He knew about them, of course. The strange land creatures that moved with concerningly rigid limbs with only three places to bend them, and that wasn’t even thinking about the strange not-fingers they had where their tail and fins should be.

The merfolk feared and despised the humans. _Land scum from the Above world_ , they would spit. They thought themselves superior to the humans, who so easily drowned where the merfolk had no trouble being.

Loki, in his self-imposed exile from his people, knew they would not look kindly upon Loki if they knew what he was thinking. His endless fascination with the Above world had alienated him from his people from an early age, so why not just leave altogether? His brother and father had been angry and sent hunting parties after him, but he had left those waters behind and journeyed where merfolk are not willing to go. _Too close to the humans_. Merfolk used to like areas such as these, the Sirens of the tribe would lure them to their doom on the sharp rocks and then they would gather anything useful from the wreckage to use or for trade. Not anymore though, the humans grew smarter and learnt how to capture and kill the merfolk easily, prey turned predator and predator turned prey.

Shifting in the water at the seafloor, Loki peered up curiously at the small thing floating on the water. It was nearly as long as he was from head to fin, but was wider than about three of his slim form. Another thing that made him strange among his people. Mermen were muscular and of larger builds, while mermaids were fairer and slim, with corded and lean muscles. It was wrong for a merman to have the slim and lean build he possessed, and no amount of training had been able to fix the abnormality.

Thinking back to the human in the floating thing, Loki wondered what it was doing. This was the third day it had come back to this area, rather close to Loki’s cave and a rotting corpse of a giant version of the floating thing from long ago when the merfolk still sunk them. Sometimes the human would put things in the water. Not hooks or nets, but little rods attached to strings.

Sometimes one of them would send a pulse through the water that irritated Loki’s ears. They were pointed, with sensitive membranes that fanned out on the side of his head and would vibrate and twitch uncomfortably when this happened. It reminded Loki of the call of dolphins, only when dolphins created this pulse, it was soothing and made Loki feel warm inside, it also let him know there was a pod nearby. Dolphins were wonderful companions and often had wonderful stories to tell of their travels.

It was dark in the Above at the moment, so it was strange to see the human here when it was not bright out. It had been over a week now and Loki’s curiosity was like a burning thing inside his breast. Cautiously, Loki swam towards the Above, feeling the water loosen its hold on him as he grew closer to the surface where the water was usually warmer.

There were no things in the water and no light on the floating thing, so Loki carefully breached the surface to get a better look. There on the thing was the human, a male human. In the dim silvery light of the stars and moon, Loki could see he had short brown hair and faintly tanned skin. It was difficult to tell the length of humans, since they did not have tails, but Loki would think he was rather small compared to most humans of his age, if humans and merfolk aged about the same. Loki knew merfolk lived longer, but he was unsure as to how much longer or if that meant that they reached maturity at different ages.

Thankfully the humans back was to him, so with just the top of his head from the bridge of his nose up peeking out of the sea, he could examine him. He was wearing some deep red cloth over his torso to cover himself, which Loki thought was odd. It provided no protection! The air tugged and pulled at the flimsy material even as he watched! What was the point in covering up if it wasn’t for protection?

Green eyes narrowed and tried to make out anything else on the floating thing. He really wished he knew what it was called, as constantly thinking of it as ‘floating thing’ was rather annoying. That and Loki hated not knowing things, he was a scholar, he liked to explore and discover rather than hunt and kill and battle like the other merfolk.

The waves lapped at Loki’s long dark hair that fanned around his head where it breached the surface. The thing made a strange clonking noise as it was moved by the waves, and Loki tilted his head curiously to see if he could hear it again when the human shifted and began to turn. Loki froze and just as the human began to turn his head in Loki’s direction Loki darted under the water with a strong reverse flick of his tail, deep emerald scales helping to let him swiftly glide below the surface and back to safety. He cursed himself even as he retreated further below the waves, hearing the human call out a hesitant ‘hello?’. He’d made a small splash, and in the silence of the Above the human had obviously heard it.

The human continued to return every day and for days Loki refused to even look at the thing the human was floating in, for fear that he would be stupid enough to peek into the Above once again and get himself killed.

Unfortunately, though, Loki was too curious for his own good, so he took to hovering below the human as he worked and amused himself by listening to the human speak to himself as he did so, diligently avoiding the ‘probes’, as he called them, as they were dropped into the water.

From what Loki could gather, the man was searching for the wrecked floating thing- which from the man’s rambling seemed to be called a _ship_ , so Loki assumed the human was using a smaller ship to float on the water. Loki had grinned once he realised that this ‘ship’ the human had been rambling about was the wreckage by his cave, because he _finally_ had a name for the damn things that humans used to float.

Loki wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been since the human had started coming to this area of Loki’s waters, but he knew it had to have been a couple months at least. Loki had come to look forward to when the human would ‘visit’ him. It was lonely for Loki, out here on his own. The dolphins did not pass by very often and there were no tribes of merfolk in this ocean, which was why Loki had come here in the first place, but that was beside the point. There was only his cave, the shipwreck, and a very small island about an hour’s swim away from his cave home.

Today was no different from any other. The human did his work and Loki listened from below his small ship. He didn’t understand a lot of what the human was talking about, but Loki assumed that he was using specialty terms for his work and unless one was versed in the field, then most others would have no hope to understand the jargon.

The human was getting rather close to the wreckage now, and consequently, Loki’s home. Loki was a little nervous about that, but he figured he should be fine. Humans drowned if they stayed under water for too long, didn’t they? And they couldn’t swim very deep with their strange, rigid limbs, either. They just lacked the strength that came from having a limb entirely made of muscle like the merfolk did.

Loki was startled out of his musings, having fallen into a comfortable lull under the ship as the human talked. Straightening up, Loki glanced up at the human’s ship and listened as the human cursed to himself.

“Dammit! Idiot! I forgot to back up that data, and now I’ve gone and dropped it in the fucking ocean! Shit!”

Frowning, Loki looked down and saw a fat rectangular device sinking swiftly sinking to the seabed. With one last glance up at the ship, where he could vaguely make out the human leaning over the side as if in hope to see his lost tool through the water. He couldn’t see it of course, or Loki would have been seen by now. The water was too murky here for those who lived in the Above to see down into it. Under the water was rather clear, but not when looking into it.

Loki flicked his fin and dove down after the lost item, catching up to it with a few quick flips of his tail, snatching it up before it hit the bottom. Curious, he looked over the device. It was red with gold highlights and a clear-ish material on the surface of one side. There was text still sitting on that part, the front he guessed, and Loki assumed this was the ‘data’ the human was talking about. On the back, where the red and gold was, it was made of a hard, rubbery material that was slightly scuffed like it had been scraped against rocks a lot.

Hesitating for a moment, Loki touched the front with his finger, retracting the membranes from the gaps in-between them to better hold the device. The front changed and Loki flinched, startled, dropping the device and propelling himself away from it on instinct.

Gills on his neck flaring as he took a deep breath, he swam forward and bent his tail so he was half sitting on it with the rest wrapped around himself. He calmed himself with another breath of salty water and reached down to pick up the device again. The ‘data’ was no longer on the front, but there was a bunch of little symbols on top of a… really life-like drawing of his human kissing the head of… _what was that!?_

It was tiny, when resting against the human’s head and cupped in one hand. It had pointy ears on the top of its head and a tiny little nub for what he thought was a nose. It looked soft and fluffy, with four little limbs and a tail that was obviously not designed for swimming. It’s two eyes were blue and it had white whiskers on its face. There was a collar around its neck with a charm that was carved with the word ‘Jarvis’. Was this creature a Jarvis? Is that what it was? What a strange name.

Humans were weird.

Now knowing what to expect, Loki touched the front again and barely flinched when it changed. Frowning, he lifted it closer to his face to scrutinise what was now on the front. He had no idea what to make of it so he searched for what he had touched the first time and tapped it again, bringing him back to the screen with the human and the Jarvis.

He sat there for a long time, amusing himself with figuring out how the tool worked and what each little symbol did when tapped. He found one, that had a green cylinder with a little yellow flying creature above it, and discovered it was some kind of game. You had to tap the front and the little creature would move up, and if you didn’t then it would fall down. If it touched the green things, then you would have to start again. It even kept count of how many times Loki had avoided them with the creature.

There was something called a ‘scoreboard’ that had a list of the ‘best scores’ on it, Loki assumed this was a system to keep track of the most times the little creature had avoided the green things. The highest had an eighty-six written on it. So far Loki had only gotten to twenty-seven. Grinning, Loki was determined to get at least eighty-seven. The game was frustrating but Loki was incredibly stubborn and persevered.

Loki didn’t know how long he sat there, tapping furiously at the front when he finally beat his goal. A proud ninety-nine flashed on the screen and Loki let out a sound of triumph, smiling smugly to himself for having beaten the human’s score after only just learning how this thing worked.

His human. Loki winced, he’d forgotten about the human, and when he looked up his hearts dropped. The little ship was gone, meaning the human had left without retrieving his thing. Sighing sadly, Loki thought it was probably for the best. How would he have given it back without exposing himself, anyway?

It was dark in the Above now, so Loki swam back to his cave and settled on his bed of soft sea grasses and seaweed. He stayed up for a long time more amusing himself with this thing and what it could do. He came across a symbol of a flower he had never seen before. Was this what flowers looked like in the Above?

When it opened, he found his eyes widening at how many of those life-like drawings there were. The words under the symbol had said ‘photo gallery’. Were they called photos? Huh. He tapped the first one, finding this ‘photo’ to be another one of the Jarvis. It appeared to be sleeping, so its eyes weren’t visible, but its tiny body was and Loki was able to get a clearer look at the Jarvis. Its body was covered in… hair? The fluff that was a strange patchwork of white, light brown, dark brown, and black was odd and rather endearing.  

There were a lot of photos of the Jarvis, and Loki had to admit it _was_ cute and he could kind of see why his human would have so many photos of it. There were some of his human, his brown hair and warm brown eyes smiling at him, beard neatly trimmed and styled. In some of the photos, he was making funny faces and it made Loki laugh, caught off guard. Some of them were truly ridiculous.

He slid his finger to the side and the photo changed to the next one. Useful. It was of a dark-skinned man with barely any hair, just stubble, indicating it had been very closely cut somehow. There were photos of odd hulking hunks of smooth, shiny… rock? with more of the clear material and sitting on the ground with big round things. There were more photos of the human and the dark skinned one, and one or two of a female one with long ginger hair.

Yawning, Loki pressed the little thing that made the lights go out and come back on and gently placed it next to his bed on the floor of the cave. Turning over and getting himself comfortable, curling his tail and fins around himself for comfort, Loki drifted off to sleep, images of his human smiling at him when he gave back the thing. He dreamt of holding the Jarvis and feeling its small body in his hand while the human kissed its head then his own.

The next day, Loki went out and waited for his human to return, but… he didn’t come at his usual times. Maybe he was upset about losing his thing? The next day Loki waited again, but his human didn’t come back. On the third day, Loki was fiddling with the thing again. It seemed as though it was waterproof, as it looked dry underneath its back covering thing.

He played the game with the little flying creature again and beat his score by thirteen but grew bored. He knew the patterns now. He swiped to the side now that he knew he could, and found more symbols. He tapped one at random and found himself looking at the sand and his fins.

Frowning, Loki turned the thing around, but it still had the red and gold back on it. How had it become transparent? Flipping it back around, Loki pressed the big white circle in the bottom middle to see what it did. There was a weird motion over the image before it showed Loki what he was looking at before, frown deepening, he moved the device but the view didn’t change. He swiped to the side and found himself looking at the Jarvis. Swiping back in the other direction, was part of his tail fin.

Realisation dawn on Loki and excitement grew in his chest. Was _this_ how the photos were created? He grinned and pressed the little arrow that had appeared in the corner and moved him back to the photo taking part. He briefly closed that and checked what the little writing below the symbol said. ‘Camera’. He tapped it again and was met with a view of a patch of seaweed. So the camera made photos? Humans were so much more interesting than Loki had hoped!

Loki spent some time familiarising himself with what each little white symbol did. There was one that let him view something more closely, and one that did the opposite. There was one that made the photo change colour or bring it into better focus, one that flipped the view so Loki was staring at _himself_ instead and one that made a lot of photos, only when Loki tapped the triangle in a circle, the photos _moved_ in the way they’d been made!

Loki spent the rest of the day making photos and moving photos with the camera. He made photos of his home and the shipwreck, even some of himself. He had had no idea that was how he _actually_ looked until now. He couldn’t exactly see his own face, and had had to rely on what he could feel and what others had told him.

On the fourth day, his human had still not returned, and Loki had taken to using the symbol that let him draw things to pass the time.

On the fifth day, he found a game with coloured dots and you had to connect the colours together and fill the grid to win the puzzle, only to do it all over again with a new one.

On the sixth day, it stopped working and Loki didn’t understand why. It was working fine yesterday! Had he broken it? He hoped he hadn’t. He wanted to return it when the human came back, but would the human be mad if it was broken?

On the seventh day Loki was getting worried. Why hadn’t his human come back yet? He missed the human and his chatter. Sometimes Loki would answer back, even if the human couldn’t hear him, just so he could pretend he was actually having a conversation with his human. He didn’t even know his name! There had been a lot of words on the thing, but how was Loki to know if any of them was his humans name? Did his human even have a name? What if humans didn’t name each other? Loki was pretty sure they did, or it would be confusing, but it wasn’t like he’d ever met a human and unfortunately stalking one and listening as it spoke to itself didn’t count.

Letting out a sad breath of salt water, Loki floated down to the floor and miserably fiddled with his green tail fin, picking at his emerald scales to clean them of anything that might have managed to get caught in them. The human probably wasn’t coming back, having lost his data in the possibly broken thing Loki now had sitting in his cave. He should have just given it back right away. Surely, he could have done it without being seen somehow, but _nooooo_ he had to get all distracted and play with the stupid thing and keep it, however accidently. He had essentially stolen it.

The current pulled at his hair and Loki lazily lifted a hand to push it out of the way, scratching at it lightly with his finger scales. His human also had finger scales, Loki randomly mused, he wondered why. They didn’t have scales anywhere else as far as he was aware. They didn’t have retractable membrane-like skin between their fingers either like he did either, or they’d be able to swim better. His hand touched his ear. Human ears were smaller and rounded, the same colour as their skin, and didn’t look very useful. They were so small! And how could they hear if they didn’t have the membranes to feel the vibrations?

Humans were weird.

Loki was just contemplating swimming back home when a faint shadow fell over him, making him still. Hearts beating fast in his chest, Loki forced himself to look up, hopeful green eyes filling with relief and joy upon seeing the familiar shape of his human’s ship sitting on the water.

He sat there for a long moment in shock, only snapping out of it when a ‘probe’ was dropped into the water, sinking a little deeper than normal, but Loki didn’t care because his human was back! Propelling himself off the sandy floor, he dashed to his cave and scooped up the thingy from where he’d left it, and made his way back to the ship.

Slowly as he neared the surface, Loki tried to see which direction his human was facing. All he would need was a moment, then he could dash up, leave the thing in the ship for the human to find, and be back under the water before he was caught.

He watched as the human worked, talking to himself as per usual, before leaning over to begin collecting his probe from the water. Seeing his chance, Loki dashed to the other side of the ship and silently broke the surface. Keeping his eyes on his humans back, Loki carefully flicked his tail so it was keeping his torso above the water, with smooth, strong strokes that barely made a ripple.

Keeping careful hold of the thing, he reached over and placed it on the nearest surface within the ship. He nearly got distracted with observing the inside of the ship and all the human’s objects, some he had seen in the water and some he hadn’t, but then he saw the human straighten up and quickly backed away and lowered himself back down into the water, peeking for a second longer before once again ducking under the waves.

He sank down and hid under the shadows of the little ship and wiggled happily, fins flicking and twitching excitedly with adrenaline. Had he actually just done that? He had! He hoped the human’s data was okay and that he hadn’t broken the thing, but even if he had, he had slipped it into the ship without getting caught! Loki grinned and did a little twirl just because he could.

Loki used his arms to swim up closer to the ship, so he could listen to the human ramble. It was at least two hours before there was an abrupt pause in the rambling. Swimming up so he was almost touching the bottom of the ship, he heard his human let out a confused ‘What the hell?’. Loki was suddenly nervous, as his human had obviously discovered the thing Loki had returned- not that the human knew that of course.

There was a long stretch of time where nothing happened and Loki grew more and more anxious by the second, tail curling around him in an attempt to feel smaller than he already was. Another probe dropped into the water and one of Loki’s hearts nearly leapt out of his chest in fright. The rambling started up again as if nothing had happened, and Loki let himself relax. It was perfectly fine.

The next day, Loki found his human almost directly above the shipwreck, the uncomfortable vibrations in his ears having woken him from a nap, having been too stressed to sleep properly the night before, his mind going over the what-ifs of what he had done.

So the human had finally found the wreck. It took him a while, but Loki supposed that it made sense.

Loki took up his usual position under the ship and listened to the human’s slightly muffled voice. Another probe was dropped into the water, and Loki wouldn’t have paid any mind to it had it not started moving.

Frowning, Loki tilted his head and watched the probe swim down. Curious, Loki followed. It was a little bigger than Loki’s fist and when it swam it created bubbles as something spun in circles, making it move around.

It dove down lower. Sometimes it would spin around as if checking behind itself. Loki didn’t know how the probes worked, so he thought nothing of it. Maybe it was just checking it could still sense the ship the human was on?

Loki followed it around as it circled the ship and his cave. It never entered his cave, thankfully, but it did hover around it a lot. It also hovered around the ship a lot as well. Maybe it was trying to find the rocks that had sunk it? They were gone now, and his cave was sitting where they once were.

Eventually, the probe thing turned around and began heading back to the Above. Loki saw the human’s hand reach into the water to retrieve the probe before it vanished into the Above once more. Loki was loath to admit he was disappointed that his fun had ended so soon, he’d like following the probe as it swam around.

Knowing that the human was leaving now, Loki went back to his cave and settle down for a nap, still tired, and quickly fell asleep, half dosing in his curled-up position.

In his dose, an unknown amount of time later, Loki heard a strange sound, ears twitching as they listened, pulling him back to wakefulness. Loki’s brows furrowed as he opened his eyes. What _was_ that noise? He’d never heard anything like it. Sitting up, Loki looked around his cave. Was it outside? It sounded close.

Swimming slowly over to the entrance of the cave, he froze, eyes wide and hearts pounding with fear. There was a… a _thing_ swimming in the entrance of his cave. It was human shaped but it had no hair and weird fins on the end of its two limbs and bulky shiny-smooth-rock material attached to its back and a rope connecting that to something that was replacing the creatures mouth.

Terrified, Loki back away swiftly and grabbed the first thing he could use as a weapon, a pathetic spear made of sharpened stone and a rod of ship material wrapped in seaweed to hold it together.

Shaking, he pointed his spear at the creature, trying to quell his fear. He’d never been good at fighting. He didn’t like it, but now he might really need to fight. He was trapped in his cave with the creature blocking his exit. Loki didn’t know what weapons the creature had, and so couldn’t decide as to whether trying to push past it was going to be a good idea or not.

This all had happened very quickly, of course, and the creature seemed to suddenly realise he wasn’t easy prey. But then it… raised its hands? It had stopped swimming towards him and was holding its hands up in a nonthreatening gesture. Its weird fins were flat on the floor and bubbles occasionally escaped where the mouth should be.

Breathing heavily through his gills, Loki frowned in confusion, lowering his raised arms slightly. Why… why wasn’t it attacking him? What was it? As Loki watched, the creature slowly reached down to its side with one hand and Loki instantly raised his spear again, watching the creature warily.

The thing slowed its movements, making a show of reaching into something that looked like a pouch and pulling its hand back out with… the thing? Utterly confused now, Loki’s arms fell limply to his sides as the creature presented him with the thing, still with its back of red and gold.

The creature offered the thing to him again with both hands, shuffling forward a little. Loki warily rested his spear on the wall behind him and approached the creature, snatching the thing away once he was close enough and retreating backwards again.

He glanced down at the thing, which had its front light out, and gave a long look to the creature hovering patiently in the exit, arms resting by its sides. Carefully, Loki retracted the webs between his fingers and pressed the part that made the light come back, still watching the creature for any sign it would attack.

He was distracted however, when the light _did_ come back. So he hadn’t broken it! Or he did and it had been fixed, but how did this creature have his human’s thing? Had his human dropped it again or had this thing stolen it?

Looking down at the part that was lit up, Loki swiped his finger across it and found the flower again. Maybe his human had made another photo? There were no new ones, to Loki’s disappointment, but the ones he’d made were still there. Frowning, he went back to the symbol screen and looked for anything new.

He jerked back and nearly dropped the thing when a hand made to touch it. Pulling it close to his chest protectively, Loki stared at the creature that had made its way to him while he was distracted. Green eyes flicked to the exit, but were quickly drawn back to the creature when it began gesturing to the thing and back to itself, sometimes tilting its head.

Cautiously, Loki lowered the thing so the creature could see the front. The gesturing stopped and it reaches out a finger to swipe the front and tap the flower again. Confused, Loki watched as it touched a picture of his human and pointed to it and then to itself.

Looking down at the creature and back at the photo, he guessed that the creature was trying to tell him that… he was the human? But that wasn’t right. His human didn’t look like this creature, the photo proved as such.

He shook his head and pointed at the photo and at the creature, who seemed to huff if the sudden burst of bubbles was anything to go by. It quickly took the thing from Loki’s hands, much to his fright, and began to tap furiously at it. After a few seconds, the creature turned it around and gave it back to Loki.

Looking down, Loki found the screen a yellowish colour with black lines running horizontally across it. There was also words, so Loki lifted the thing closer to his face to read it.

_Hi, I’m Tony. I noticed you’ve been following me around for the past few months and I wanted to know if we could chat? That’s if you can read this of course, it’s okay if you can’t though just-_

Loki stopped after that, glancing at the… human? Before nodding once slowly. The human… thing seemed to perk up and took the thing back from Loki and put it back in his pouch. Then it did a strange gesture that involved fisting both his hands so its thumbs were pointing up. Confused and uncertain, Loki returned the gesture. The human nodded and turned to leave the cave, using the strange fins to swim upwards.

Better judgement be damned, Loki followed the human as it approached its ship and grabbed onto its side. Not daring to breach the water yet, Loki watched as it pulled off the things that had been covering its mouth and eyes before discarding them into the ship and pulling back the thing that had been covering his hair.

Nervousness swirled in Loki’s gut as he breached the surface a little ways behind the human, who was levering himself into his ship, making the side of it sink downwards and the other lift higher. Once inside, he pulled of the bulky thing on his back and used the middle bend of its limb to pull off the fin.

Loki pulled a face at that. Why would he remove his fins?

Grinning, the human turned his head to look at Loki, whose chin was still in the water. The human waved him over and Loki cautiously approached the ship.

“Hi!” The human- Tony? greeted brightly.

Taking a second to adjust his method of breathing, Loki replied with an unsure, “Hello.”

Tony’s grin grew wider and he shifted closer to Loki while still in his ship excitedly. “Hi! I’m so glad we can understand each other or this could have gotten awkward. Just in case you didn’t get it before, I’m Tony. You’ve been following me almost ever since I got here.”

Loki’s cheeks grew a little warm with embarrassment and a little fear at that. The human- Tony, had known he was there the whole time?

After a long silence, the- Tony seemed to realise Loki wasn’t going to speak without prompting. “What’s your name?”

“Loki.”

“Loki? I like it. I’ve never met a mermaid before, or merman, whatever, you know what I mean. Everyone back home thinks you all never existed. I wasn’t so sure, because it would be cool, you know?” Tony rambled, causing Loki to smile and relax, allowing himself to breach the water a little more so his shoulders were peeking out.

“How did you know I was here?” He asked, curiosity getting the best of him again.

“The things I was putting in the water?”

“The probes?”

“Well they were- hey! You could hear me! That’s awesome! Anyway, yes, the probes. They send out little signals that tell me where stuff is, like rocks and fish. There’s one that uses echolocation-“ Loki tilted his head at the word. “Like a dolphin?”

“Oh, so that’s what that was? It was rather irritating, and sounds nothing like a dolphin.” Loki frowns at the man, annoyed.

Tony scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “It doesn’t? Oh, sorry about that. But it let me see that you were there. I had no idea what it was at first, I thought I was going mad.”

Loki is gripping the edge of the little ship, feeling the smooth shiny rock. “What is your ship made from?” He asks, still running his fingers along the smooth surface.

Tony let out a short laugh, causing Loki to look up, wondering what he had said that was so funny.

“What?”

“Sorry, just, ship?”

Loki hesitated, suddenly unsure. Was that… not what these things were called. “Is this not a ship? You said the large one you were looking for was a ship, did you not? Isn’t this not just a smaller one?”

Tony let out a long ‘ohhhh’ before shaking his head. “No, that is a ship. This is a boat, we don’t really have ships like that anymore and the ones we do are usually twice the size.”

“Boat.” Loki repeated, testing the word. Tony nodded, smiling. More confident his questions would be answered and he wouldn’t be mocked for asking, he pointed to the human’s rigid limbs. “What about those? What are they called?”

Tony looked confused for a moment, glancing down, realisation dawning. “Oh, these? Legs. I suppose you wouldn’t know what they were, since you don’t have any. Legs and feet, we use them to walk and run and stuff.”

Loki made a face, looking at these _legs_ and _feet_ , which were bare showing the little not-fingers attached to them. “What about those? They look like fingers but not.”

“Toes, they help us balance. If we didn’t have toes we’d just fall over.” Tony dramatically mimed falling and smacking his face against some invisible floor and Loki laughed. Tony grinned smugly, slipping off the weird layer he had worn in the water so his torso was bare. Much better, Loki thought. He was muscled, not as lean as Loki, but in no way bulky like other mermen.

“Since you asked about mine, can I ask about yours?”

“My what?”

“Your tail. I saw it in the water, but not properly. Would it be alright if I…?”

Loki paused, surely it wouldn’t hurt? “Move over.”

Tony quickly shifted back. Loki gripped the edge of the boat and easily lifted himself out of the water to sit on the edge, scales glinting in the low light of the sun, salt water running in rivets off the emerald scales at the sudden displacement from water to air. He heard Tony gasp beside him. Looking warily at the human, he found Tony’s gaze locked onto his tail, an expression of awe on his handsome face.

“Wow…” He reached out a hand towards Loki’s tail before catching himself and pulling his hand back, obviously trying to respect perceived boundaries despite his curiosity. Making a split-second decision, Loki grabs Tony’s hand and places it against his scales, allowing Tony to feel them.

Completely enamoured, Tony strokes up and down the scales, tracing each individual curve and ridge, mapping out the pattern. Loki found himself enjoying the attention, closing his eyes and letting himself relax into the curious touch. It had been so long since he’d seen anyone else, he’d missed casual touches.

The fingers moved to where one of Loki’s fins was trapped underneath him. Most of his tail was still in the water, but one of his fins were still accessible. Shifting up a bit, he readjusted so his fin wasn’t being squished and Tony instantly began to inspect that too, with just as much attention as he had given his scales. 

He lifted the sail fin and stretched it out, feeling down where the dark green met light. This goes on for some time when Tony finally stops. Loki, whose eyes had been closed and enjoying the feel of the human’s warm hands, huffed. Opening his eyes, he side-eyes him, clearly displaying his displeasure.

Infuriatingly, the human just gives him a cheeky smile, casually resting his hand back on Loki’s tale. The warmth is nice on his scales so Loki forgives him, for now.

They sit in comfortable silence, and Loki basks in the silent company. How long had it been? He is not sure, it is hard to tell the light-dark cycles when one spends most of their time unable to see into the Above.

He casts his gaze about and looks over the sea, a faint curve in the far distance that Loki still has no answer for. He lifts his tail fin from the water, fanning it as much as he is able and studies it in the warm light of the sun. The slightly transparent fin distorts his view, and he is quickly drying of water. He frowns at the uncomfortable feeling. His gills have started to itch from the dryness of the air and heat of the sun. He lowers his fin back in the water and the feeling starts to ease.

“How did you know how to use my tablet?” Tony’s voice startles him from his musings, head snapping to the side to look at his human, who had apparently been watching him the whole time if his expression was anything to go by.

Brushing his dark hair behind his ear, Loki tilts his head, a slight furrow to his brow. “Your… tablet?”

Tony picks up the thing with the red and gold back and the clear-ish front he had dropped in the water days ago. “Oh, that thing is called a tablet?”

Tony nods and offers the… _tablet_ to him. Taking it, Loki studies it anew and begins to explain as best he can. “Well, the front was bright and when I touched it, it changed, so I did it again. I found that each symbol I touched made something different appear.” He shrugs, navigating his way to the symbol with the little flying creature. “It was simple enough after that.” He begins to play the game, distracted as he concentrates on avoiding the green things.

“Oh my god, _you’re_ the one who beat my score like a fucking pro?!” Tony suddenly exclaims, startling Loki so much his fingers reflexively relax and he drops the tablet, barely managing to catch it before it fell into the sea again.

“What?” He asks, hearts beating slightly faster from his fright. Tony opens his mouth, closes it again, and stares at the screen that displayed the three highest scores, Loki’s one hundred twelve point score sitting innocently at the top. Huffing, Tony takes his tablet back, grumbling to himself about what Loki assumes is the game, leaving Loki to smile bemusedly at the human. It was just a silly game, was it not? No reason to get so worked up, surely? Maybe it was another weird human thing.

The Above grew darker the longer they sat and talked, and Loki’s gills had started to itch again, despite his fin still submerged in the blessedly cool water. With a heaviness to his hearts that Loki did not want to admit to having, Loki slipped from the boat and settled himself back in the water.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well, I guess I’d better go, its getting late.”

Carefully masking his disappointment, Loki replied as neutrally as possible. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow and we can hang out again, if that’s alright?”

Loki blinked, taken aback. “You would return?” _Even after you saw me, got your fill of the strange creature that is Loki? You would come back after seeing how strange and wrong I am? You would return only for me?_

“Well, yeah, duh. You’re one of my friends now, and what kind of friend would I be if I just up and left you here all on your lonesome forever?”

The vice around Loki’s hearts loosened and he found himself grinning with happiness like he had never felt before. On impulse, he launched himself further out of the water with strong swishes of his tail, and pressed a kiss to his human’s soft lips, a hand reaching up to cup the humans head, fingers threading pleasantly through soft brown hair.

Tony had frozen at first, startled by the suddenness of the kiss, before smiling and returning the gesture in kind, his warmth leeching into Loki and filling him with a giddy happiness and soft warmth. Hands gripped Loki’s shoulder and twisted in his longer hair

Still grinning, Loki pulled back, pressing his slightly damp forehead to Tony’s own, gazing into warm brown eyes. “And I look forward to seeing you again for many days to come.”


End file.
